Christmas seems to arrive earlier every year. This month it cranked up a gear with the John Lewis TV advert hitting our screens but the likes of Tesco and M&S and even Selfridges’ launched some of their in-store and window displays before the end of October almost completely bypassing Halloween.
According to John Lewis, “Christmas” has been the most popular search item on their website since September 3rd! Regardless of your views as to when the festive season should start as a consumer, as a marketer or retailer, there’s no denying just how important this period is for business and the fact that it’s never too early to plan to capitalise on this retail bonanza.
There’s no question that most retailers rely on consumer spending during the Christmas season to bring them back into the black when it comes to their balance sheets. Just consider how much is spent on advertising at Christmas. Last year, John Lewis spent £7m on its marque, ‘Bear and Hare’ Christmas ad. It cost £1m to create, £5m was spent on airtime and a further £1m was spent on advertising across other channels. These sort of big-budget ads are becoming more and more popular with retailers (and consumers) at Christmas, so it’s vital to get the strategy right.
As part of a 2014 study, xAd and Telmetrics have collaborated with Nielsen to produce a UK consumer’s path to purchase. Over half of mobile activity happens when consumers are just beginning to consider shopping options, but 30% of consumers are looking to make a purchase within the hour. It’s no secret that the smartphone is core to a consumer’s shopping experience, whether that’s for price comparison, research or as a navigational tool with maps and consumers getting directions to drive them into retail stores.
At no other time of year is this truer, than at Christmas and with 32% of the UK population being mCommerce ‘buyers’ according to a TNS survey commissioned by Google, the UK is in fact one of the worlds most advanced ecommerce markets. Brits are particularly prolific during the end-of-year sales. eMarketer estimates that UK retail ecommerce during this year’s Christmas season will total £12.8bn and account for 15% of the country’s total holiday season retail sales.
But while it’s vital that retailers look at the weeks before Christmas to make sure they have a successful end to the year, there are a couple of major retail events before Christmas that need to be tackled, not to mention the increasing phenomenon of ‘Commuter Commerce’ and the convenience of “Click and Collect” in the UK. Here are five ways retailers can start to make sure they get all they want from the festive period:
1. Start integrated campaigns now – November is a crucial time to start developing brand awareness through integrated campaigns. By combining Out of Home (OOH) advertising with mobile campaigns, brands can use mobile location marketplaces to own physical locations and help drive people in store and away from competitors (geo-conquesting). Relevant and timely content is vital as mobile shoppers make a purchase with increased immediacy: 50% looking to make a purchase that day and 30% looking to purchase in the next hour! When using mobile location in campaigns, it’s essential to make sure that the location data has been verified and is accurate. If not, brands and retailers risk wasting up to 70% of their budget on inaccurate and irrelevant ads that are unhelpful and not to mention creating a bad user experience for consumers. Why would you want to send an ad promoting a Big Mac Meal deal when the nearest McDonald’s is 20 miles away?
2. Don’t ignore Black Friday and Cyber Monday – no longer limited to the US, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have crossed the Atlantic and become significant retail events in the UK. Last year, John Lewis’ Buying Director, Ed Connolly, said consumers researching the in-store sales on Black Friday, resulted in a 1340% spike in mobile traffic between 7am and 8am. On the same day, ASDA rolled out an above-the-line campaign, advertising in-store only discounts to get people through the doors. Cyber Monday retailers should be putting mobile at the heart of the sales drive, launching time-limited promotions, specifically on mobile, in order to drive in-store footfall.
3. Take advantage of ‘Commuter Commerce’ and consider Click & Collect for those last minute shoppers - Over the last couple of years we’ve seen the rise of ‘Commuter Commerce’. Research from Geometry Global in 2013 indicated that 90% of UK smartphone users are browsing and buying on the move, with 57% using their commute to browse products and compare prices. 31% go on to make a purchase during that time.
Retailers like Amazon are already on the ball with their UK MD Chris North stating that, “People are maximising their commuting time by shopping on the way to and from home”.
I, myself, thank the retail gods for mobile optimised sites during my commute into work. Being able to buy through one click and then collect my wife and kids’ gifts on the way back home is truly “priceless”.
4. Leverage Christmas Day– The main event in the UK Retail Calendar has always been the Boxing Day sales and with Flurry revealing that 17.4m iOS and Android devices were activated globally on December 25th, 2012, consumers do some serious preparation for Boxing Day sales while sitting in the comfort of their home watching the Queen’s Speech on the telly and multi-screening. It’s important that brands and retailers create or extend existing campaigns for Christmas Day as there’s a substantial audience switched on. Last year an Experian report revealed that British shoppers made 129m visits to retail websites on Boxing Day, up 12% from the previous year. Boxing Day shows the best performance on mobile with over 45% of total digital sales and 58% of the site traffic for that day.
5. Measure the results! – It’s all well and good having run these campaigns but what impact did they have and did they help meet objectives? Mobile can provide retailers and brands with the ability to track and analyse optimised campaigns, from mobile tap to in-store foot traffic, such as xAd’s Store Visitation Lift (SVL) study which measures store lift and the impact of a campaign.
To be able to do this effectively, location needs to play an important role. In the online desktop world, retailers and brands rely on cookies to build a profile of where consumers have been and what they’ve been looking at. Away from the desktop, location is the new cookie on mobile. However, location data needs to be filtered and verified to be accurate and then and only then can location data play a crucial role in campaigns and be the real world cookie that retailers need to build a profile of their customers.
By Theo Theodorou, GM EMEA at xAD.
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